Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

Tag: fundraising

The Potomac estate of IT entrepreneur and philanthropist Frank Islam seemed more fitting for a Republican soiree than a Democratic fundraiser, some of Maryland’s top elected officials said Wednesday.

But big-time donors, including developers Aris Mardirossian and Fred Ezra, hotel and nursing home magnate Stewart Bainum and auto executive Tammy Darvish, gathered there to raise big bucks for the re-election campaign of Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D).

“There are not too many people who own homes like this who are great Democrats,” Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) told the audience of about 400.

I’m not surprised that Senator Cardin would press the line that Republicans are the rich guys with mansions. But why would the Post report it as fact? Consider a few other news articles from the past few days. Here’s the Post’s Zachary Goldfarb reporting from California:

As he toured a series of mansions,…at the home of Walt Disney Studios chief executive Alan Horn… at an event hosted by Marissa Mayer, the chief executive of Yahoo, and Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator…At the home of Irwin Jacobs, founder of the telecom giant Qualcomm,…Obama put the blame for failing to make progress squarely on the Republicans — “a party that has been captive to an ideology, to a theory of economics, that says those folks, they’re on their own and government doesn’t have an appropriate role to play.”

Obama was to attend a fundraiser hosted by Anne Wojcicki, a biotech entrepreneur who founded the personal-genomics startup 23andMe. The event is advertised as a Tech Roundtable, with 30 guests and tickets set at $32,400 — a nearly $1 million potential haul for the Democratic National Committee.

The article states independent groups are raising money “in response to court decisions that have tossed out many of the old rules governing federal elections, including a century-old ban on political spending by corporations.”

But the century-old ban is on campaign contributions by corporations, and it is intact. Spending on elections was not prohibited to some corporations until much later.

Other spending by corporations, like the money spent by The Washington Post Company to produce the linked story, has never been regulated or prohibited by the federal government.

The article mentions a “shadow campaign” and refers to Watergate. It states “independent groups are poised to spend more money than ever to sway federal elections.” Surely something is amiss here! Or at least the causal reader of the Post might conclude that.

But what is going on? A spokesman for one of the independent groups says they are trying to influence the debt ceiling debate and that as far 2012 goes: “We’re definitely working to shape how the president is perceived, because how he is perceived will have a huge impact on how this issue is resolved.”

It sounds like the group is engaging in political speech on an issue, speech that could have some effect on next year’s election. What is amiss about that? Isn’t the right to engage in such speech a core political right under our Constitution?

The article also argues that independent groups, being independent, may fund speech that may harm a candidate they are trying to help. Candidates, in a sense, have lost some control over their campaigns and their messages.

Of course, absent limits on contributions to candidates and parties, the money going to independent groups might go to…candidates and parties. Liberalizing speech, not suppressing independent groups, might be a good way to prevent groups from airing ads that harm or misrepresent candidates for office. Finally, candidates do have the power to repudiate independent ads.

Expect more news stories like this one over the next 18 months. The cause of campaign finance reform is in desperate straits. Reformers in the media are going to construct a narrative that says: money is destroying democracy in 2012, all because of Citizens United. They hope thereby to set the stage to restore restrictions on campaign finance.

It’s not at all clear that the political challengers whose fortunes are raised today won’t try to pull up the ladder of free and open political speech when their own incumbency receives a challenge. The Citizens United decision notwithstanding, the drive to be returned to office is a strong one.

“In politics, when people talk about special interests, they don’t mean the people who support them.”

“[Independent spending on elections] is an unknown factor. Incumbents, even those who win big, live in fear of a big last-minute spending push by outside groups.”

“The point of campaign speech is voters. The evidence is that they’re going to know more about the incumbent because of the spending. … What the incumbents want really shouldn’t matter because in the end this is a republic and government by the people.”

Public radio talk show host Diane Rehm said during WAMU’s pledge drive yesterday:

“Whenever I meet someone who says, ‘Diane, I love your show, I love what you do,’ the first thing I ask them is, ‘Are you a member?’”

“Member” means financial contributor, of course, and she went on to make the point that if you value public radio, you should contribute. Of course, every taxpayer is a contributor to public radio, whether he values it or not.

But that’s not true for the Cato Institute. We don’t accept government money. Indeed, a few years ago, we rejected a large contribution from Fannie Mae when that entity announced that it was going to add Cato to the vast list of Washington organizations and politicians on whom it showered its ill-gotten gains. We also, as it happens, got only 2 percent of our funding from corporations last year. The money that enables Cato to do its work comes overwhelmingly from 15,000 individual contributors.

So Diane Rehm’s question is much more valid in our case: Do you visit the Cato website or enjoy seeing our scholars on television and in the newspapers? Do you value the work we do on behalf of liberty and limited government? Are you a Sponsor? If not, shouldn’t you become a Sponsor and help make sure we can continue and expand that work?